


sunshine in a bag

by chickrie



Category: Gorillaz
Genre: Couch Cuddles, Gen, Phase 1, noodle knows how to cheer everyone up its so great!!!, they are all happy and i love them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 12:36:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10697154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chickrie/pseuds/chickrie
Summary: this is literally 2k words of phase 1 cuddling. enjoy!





	sunshine in a bag

**Author's Note:**

> ☼ this is the longest thing ive ever written pls go easy on me  
> ☼ this is also the first gorillaz thing ive written too im sorry if theyre ooc  
> ☼ if theres something u dont understand i may have just made it up to save the plot or it may be a prsnl hc oof  
> ☼ enjoy!!!  
>   
> **EDITED ON 05 OCT ‘18: changed up some tenses but everything is relatively the same

sitcom laughter filled the room and the television across from them flickered with static. the rain outside splattered relentlessly onto the glass windows, leaving heavy water droplets streaming across the panes in its wake. 

fog surrounded kong studios in coils, blocking the view from inside any sort of sight into the cemetery depths below... 

from _anything_ below, really. 

to noodle, the only world that happened to exist at that very moment was the one within those stone-cold walls.

she shivered and tucked herself deeper into the crevice between russel and the couch arm, seeking warmth. the movement, impossible to have gone unnoticed by him, prompts russel to shift his body in order to give her more room. the arm he already had around her form squeezes her closer to him and she sighs appreciatively in response, snuggling closer in. 

she turned to look up at him and stilled for a moment to stare. russel was a very big man. at least he was compared to her (which wasn’t a very hard thing to achieve, in her opinion). she liked russel a lot. a lot of people seemed to be scared of him, though. she never really understood why. he was really nice and nothing about him besides his size seemed particularly intimidating- well, actually, she takes that back: his eyes _did_ sometimes feel like they had the ability to see straight into your soul... but she trusted him enough that she wasn't ever scared. he cared about her. he would never use whatever he happened to find in her against her, she’s sure of it. russel was a very big man. 

and he laughed a lot, too. she really, really liked that. 

it didn’t take long for russel to notice her staring and so he twisted his neck down to face her. 

her small arm was poised gracefully above her head, towards his hat. she opens and closes the raised hand repeatedly, as if mimicking a quacking duck, and he gets the message quickly, pulling the hat off of his head, wordlessly handing it to her. she mumbled a tiny, almost inaudible _thank you_ in his direction as she gently took it from him. he smiled, skin around his eyes crinkling. 

she caressed the snapback in her hands, following the yellow and white stripes on its surface with her fingertips. she flipped it upside down and sees a name written in sharpie across the inside of the crown. she recognizes the name and mouths it silently. 

" _del.._ " she says, aloud this time. 

"del," russel repeats back in affirmation, nodding. 

she stared at it some more and russel moved to pry it kindly from her hands. he plucked off her helmet, setting it aside, dutifully placing his yellow one on her head instead. it covered her eyes for a fraction of a second and a confused sound left her mouth. 

she heard a soft huff from above her and her ears turned a slight shade of pink. thinking she was being teased, noodle lifted the bill to pout up at russ, but stopped in her tracks as soon as she did. del was there, sat in front of her. she blinked. 

she blinked again. 

by her third blink, russ was back, still smiling at her. 

this time, though, his mouth was tight with sadness and his eyes looked haunted, making him look much older than he really was. 

despite her confusion, noodle quickly pushed it aside and decided that all she wanted to do in that moment was wipe that look off russ’ face as soon as possible. 

so, she turned the bill around so that the hat was backwards and stuck her tongue out at him. russel’s smile grew from pleasant shock; his eyes crinkling, showing more teeth, erasing some of his sad lines, for now. she grinned back easily and laughed. 

she had no time to do anything more before the thunder outside rumbled enough to shake the ground, the lightning cracking a little too loudly, like a whip. the lights flickered sporadically. in the next second, the lights went out completely, the television going black and silent. noodle tried to get a good look around, but she only succeeded at seeing darkness at every point she turned. 

"FUCK!" she heard murdoc yell irritably from the other room. russel tried to stifle a giggle and that and failed terribly. 

suddenly, a distant crash sounded, startling noodle a little. a fearful shout from somewhere soon followed. the thumping of feet resounded throughout the quiet building, getting louder and louder and louder. 

2d stumbled into the room, almost tripping over his own feet multiple times in the effort of trying to scramble over to where he thought russel and noodle would be. 

in 2d’s right hand he held a huge, yellow, industrial flashlight from who-knows-where. 

russ and noodle squinted slightly at the sudden light directed at them. 

2d sped over to the leftover couch space next to russel, hopping onto the cushions, shaking like a leaf. he and russ began to talk quickly and his shaking warped the way his lips curled around his words (already in a language noodle didn’t understand very well), making it even harder for her to decipher him than usual. it didn’t take long before she gave up, instead choosing to focus on what his body language had to say when what had been coming out of his mouth was proven to be unhelpful. 

he was leaning wholly on russ's side with his big flashlight clutched against his front, in his lap, trembling along with him. the light shined from under his face, casting shadows in unusual places, warping his facial features into something almost unrecognizable. body contorted into the fetal position, the noises warbling out of his mouth only seemed to grow more urgent and ineligible by the minute, alarming her. 

2d was an even bigger man compared to her and russ except it seemed what his body mass lacked, his height compensated for. he was so thin and long, he seemed to take up less space than her, standing; his body looking as if stretched upwards. he seemed to be even smaller than her now, though, pressed up against russ like that. every crash of lightning in the darkness seemed to shake his core from the inside out. she didn't like it. she made a worried noise and her eyebrows scrunched together. 

she had to do something. 

after a split-second brianstorm, she did the first thing that came to mind and crawled over russ without warning. she carelessly felt her way over and russ groaned a little from her unexpected weight, noodle belatedly catching some words from him about her "growing" and being "heavier" now, but she paid him no attention. 

she found her way over to 2d and secured both of her arms around his neck, just like how she did whenever russ seemed sad and she wasn’t able to find the words and phrases to make him feel better fast enough. she silently swore to herself, not for the first time, that she was going to try harder to learn english. this didn’t feel enough. 

she buried her face into his neck and breathed in, catching that whiff of butterscotch that always comforted her on some of the worst of days, hoping that whatever she smelled like was comforting to him too. she hoped that, for now, this was enough. anything to get him to stop shaking. 

she heard 2d sniffle and she pulled back. giving her a tiny, watery smile, he whispers a small, " _thank you, love,_ " once he'd properly caught her eye. she lifted her hands to his face and cupped his cheeks, beaming at him in return. 

the flashlight illuminated both of their faces, making their expressions look almost silly, and russ chuckled softly from their side at the sight. 2d's shaking settled down bit by bit and his breaths evened out after some more time in comfortable silence. 

soon, murdoc stalked his way in through the dark living room, cursing with every stomp towards the couch, red eye glowing. he caused quite the scene in trying to find a seat, eventually taking one at the opposite edge of the couch, away from all of them, reeking of fags and oil, like he always did. he and russel started up conversation. 

after eavesdropping a little and catching bits and pieces from murdoc’s deep, scratchy voice about attempting to fix something called a " _fee-ooze-box_ " and how it didn’t seem to work no matter what he tried doing to it, she chose to let the conversation happening above her go. tense and irate, his gangly arms were crossed across his chest and he resolutely made sure not to look their way. 

sensing his fouler than usual mood, noodle gently crawled over 2d's lap, careful not to jostle him too much, and sidled up to murdoc's side. 

murdoc fascinated her; she'd never met anyone like him in her life. (which wasn't such a big deal since she can't seem to remember anything before escaping the box and meeting the band, but, nevertheless.) 

he was incredibly harsh and blunt and his personality seemed way bigger than what his frame should have been able to handle. he always grumbled under his breath and looked hungover more often than not, but she found that he seemed to understand her the most, most especially when the others had a harder time. 

"no.. light?" noodle whispered into his bicep. 

a large streak of lightning cracked and illuminated the room for a flash, causing 2d to whimper and the rats on the floor to skitter uneasily. noodle scrambled for a moment to find 2d's hand behind her. as soon as she found it, she gripped it tightly, moving it forward towards her lap, no signs of letting go. 

only after hearing him take a few deep, grounding breaths does she slacken her death grip some. 

murdoc's red eye traced the movement, but called no attention to it, only sighing, " _no light,_ " in response. 

she heard russ hushing 2d softly through every sound the storm made and it calms him down, slowly but surely. she continued to squeeze 2d's hand from time to time to let him know of her presence and a peace spreads throughout the room in no time, touching them all one by one. despite the coldness from outside inevitably finding its way in, especially due to the busted heater from the blackout, the chill didn’t seem to bite at them. in their little bubble, they were warm, and nothing dared to intrude it. 

she laid on murdoc's side some more and squinted in the direction of 2d's bandaid-covered hand. she clicked her tongue and tried to remember each one's story. because of his lanky frame, he had a tendency to be very clumsy. an “ _off sense of balance,_ ” he says, hurting himself on accident quite a bit. she brushed against each and every latex strip, tracing it unseeingly; she's lost track of the number at this point. they're all normally the regular skin-toned kinds, but sometimes other colors like blue, purple, and green find their way into the mix. “ _for variety,_ “ muds had told her. 

noodle clucked her tongue disapprovingly at the number of bandaids she’d found on just one hand. 

despite the disapproval, however, noodle did have to admit that she did like how they looked, deep down. she didn’t like that it meant that 2d had hurt himself, but the strips on his hands felt like home to her. 

she'd even taken to wearing some herself; even had her own box. pink with a small white cat with a red bow on its ear on the front. she'd stuck a few onto her fingers and thumbs this morning, just for the heck of it. 

she gently set 2d's hand onto her lap after a close inspection and she reached over to weave her arm through murdoc's, taking hold of his hand instead. 

noodle once heard a saying- from another time, another place- about how a person's hands “told” their story. 

after getting to know the man, she found murdoc's “story” to be the most unique she'd ever encountered. 

his hands were rough, dry and cracked in some places. callouses covering his fingertips and knuckles home to coarse, wiry hair. they were far from pleasant, just like the man himself, but there was something about them that convinced her that she wouldn't take them any other way. she heard him grunt questioningly next to her and she snorted back at him instead of giving a proper response. 

her hands eventually found a silver skull ring secured onto his pinky finger. she wondered where it came from. 

curious, she paused abruptly and then began to sneakily try to twist it off his digit, hoping he had fallen asleep and wouldn’t notice it missing a few hours or so from now. she twisted it back and forth so slowly that she was sure that his fingertip had turned blue from the lack of blood flow, but she kept at it. 

she continued the struggle, but it refused to come off. her impatience festered inside her chest. she made a strangled, frustrated noise, forgetting her volume, and then felt a rumble at her side. shell-shocked, realizing murdoc was very much not-asleep, she immediately let go of murdoc's hand and sat as still as possible, ready to play innocent. 

until she realized that murdoc was laughing. 

it wasn't derisive or ugly, like what usually escaped his mouth, but delighted. hearing murdoc this genuine came only once every blue moon and she intended to savor it for as long as she could. 

murdoc moved and his hands shuffled in the dark. she felt rough fingertips grab onto hers as well as the smoothness of inside of the ring sliding against her thumb. he went about making sure it was secured in place and his laughter drifted off. 

she grunted in surprise and beamed into the darkness. 

noodle laced her fingers through his and exhaled happily. 

she turned her head at the sound of snoring and giggled at the sight of 2d and russ huddled together all thanks to the moon’s light, asleep at their corner of the couch. they looked incredibly uncomfortable and she knew that 2d was going to wake up with a severe crick in his neck, but she let it be for now. (who knew how long it would take for him to fall asleep again if she woke him up now? he deserved this.) 

she heard murdoc groan softly, satisfied, and she snuggled closer, humming back. she wouldn't mind spending everyday like this. she closed her eyes. the rain still pittered softly at the windows. 

the lights flickered on again, but there was no one left there to notice.

**Author's Note:**

> ☼ hc's featured: 2d is afraid of both the dark and of storms... put them together and he’s basically a mess; 2d hurts himself a lot on accident, hence the bandaids; noodle loves hello kitty; murdoc having a ring (it was for the sake of plot lol)  
> ☼ i just want y’all to know it's canon that noodle thinks 2d smells like "butterscotch angel delight"... it's so cute  
> ☼ u can find me on twitter [@bubbiiy](http://twitter.com/bubbiiy) !!  
> ☼ do u have any fav lines??? pls feel free to comment them below!!!!!  
> thank u for reading :-) !!!


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